Interview: In This Climate, Comic Powerhouse Heléne Yorke Returns to the Stage

Time and time again, Heléne Yorke has proven herself a comedic powerhouse, winning over audiences with her hilarious performances as Brooke Dubek in the TV series The Other Two, and in musicals ranging from Bullets Over Broadway to American Psycho.

Now, she’s back on the boards in Miriam Battye’s Strategic Love Play, an Audible Theatre production at the Minetta Lane Theatre through December 7. This sharp, modern comedy dives into the messy world of dating and finding connection — and reminded its star a lot of her own life. Yorke sat down to discuss her return to the stage and how motherhood has changed her views of theater and herself.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

This is your first stage thing since —
Grand Hotel at Encores! was the last thing [in 2018], and before that, American Psycho [in 2016].

Is it just like riding a bicycle?
I gotta tell you, I find it amazing. I’m so happy to be in the swing of rehearsals and thinking about words and storytelling through this medium. Michael Zegen and I talk all the time about how we’ve gotten so used to getting to set, doing a rehearsal — which is really just where you’re standing — and not hearing anything out loud until they’re rolling. There’s no sense of where you are, what you’re doing. You are doing a ton of legwork just in your noggin trying to make something happen. Being in rehearsal and reading through stuff and being thoughtful about your beats and the arc of the story has been so satisfying.

What interested you in the play itself?
Miriam’s writing is so sharp and relatable. These are all pedantic words, but what shes’s done is taken a situation we’ve all been in, the first date, and she’s dissected it and put it on the page. Her dialogue is so smart, which is why she’s also a wonderful television writer. From a personal standpoint, this character feels very much like me. Things are flying out of her mouth the minute they enter her head. It speaks to a frustration that I certainly went through, where you think “I’m supposed to have met this person, this elusive person, my person, by now, and yet I have to go through this charade to get to this person. I’m sifting through a lot of situations that make me feel like shit.” 

So, this is not your first time working at the Minetta Lane Theater.
I actually did my first ever job there. I did Walmartopia. And we did it once for three people. I have PTSD from the experience. I asked our company manager “Are we ever going to have to do it for three people?” He was like “You’re never going to have to do it for three people.

Do you see yourself and your husband anywhere in the play?
I don’t see me and my husband; my husband was the one that worked out. I see me and a lot of people I went out with. They’re all supposed to be kind of shitty until you meet the one. That’s the deal. You date, it’s all kind of bad, and then you meet the one.

I don’t see me and my husband. I see me and like a lot of people I went out with. My husband was the one that worked out. But the problem is that, while you’re going through all that bad, you need to maintain faith somehow that the one is still out there. It’s impossible.

You just had your second child in June — was there trepidation on your part to get back to this?
Definitely. This, essentially, is exactly what I wanted to be doing with kids the age that they are. I was more afraid of doing musicals. Musicals just take your whole ass to do. The trepidation is that now begins the six weeks I’ll miss bedtime, and when you do the math of that in your head, it’s sad and hard.

That said, in motherhood, it feels like you chip away pieces of yourself, and being back at work feels like being put back together again. You feel so different at work, but I move through the world and I’m thinking about them. Even if I’m doing something else, they occupy a large piece of my brain. That’s been a huge challenge. It’s hard an a way that I don’t think non-parents understand. My husband, I think, goes through the same thing. Those two boys are just always taking up a huge amount of space in there, so we’re functioning on this smaller amount of space. I feel very proud of myself for pulling up and being like “This is what it is now, and I need to figure it out, and I want to figure it out, and we move forward. Life is just different now.”